1. 2008 Billfish Workplan SCI-052 / 2007

2. Summary
Improvements of basic catch and cpue statistics for other billfish, with a focus on artisanal landings
Development of methods to better interpret the historical changes in CPUE from longline data.
Work on age, growth and reproduction to provide a comprehensive view of spawning and growth patterns for all billfish stocks.

3. Summary (cont.)
Conduct the next assessment of sailfish through a two stage process:
Hold a data preparatory meeting in the first half of 2008 to produce :
Estimates of sailfish catches
Estimate catch of all fleets, including filling gaps were catch is know to be underreported
split away any spearfish reported as sailfish
Split away any sailfish reported as billfish unclassified.
Relative abundance indices
Review sailfish biology
Have a full assessment of eastern and western stocks of sailfish in 2009.

4. Biological studies
Complete estimation of age and growth for blue marlin and white marlin
Refocus reproduction, age and growth studies towards sailfish and spearfish.
Continue and expand the analysis of tissue samples of white marlin and spearfish to evaluate the presence of round scale spearfish in the western Atlantic.
Continue the program that aims to describe vertical distribution and habitat of billfish.
Continue conventional tagging activities focusing more in the south Atlantic and Eastern Atlantic by attempting to restart conventional tagging in the Cote d’Ivoire recreational fishery.

5. Improvement of catch data
Coordination of a review of billfish catches and the design of a monitoring program in the eastern Caribbean with the FAO-WECAFC ad hoc group on moored FADs.
Collaboration with the ICCAT tropical tuna working group to estimate the historical by-catch of billfish from purse seine fisheries in West Africa and its landings as part of the FAUX POISSON mix.
Support the improvement of sampling programs for artisanal fisheries, specially in West Africa.

6. Sailfish data meeting Estimates of sailfish catches
Relative abundance indices
Review sailfish biology

7. Update estimates of catch for all components of the directed and bycatch fisheries with an emphasis of the main sources of historic harvest:
Bycatch from industrial longlines fleets
Bycatch from tropical purse seine
Artisanal gillnet
Artisanal FAD fleets
Recreational
Estimates of live releases for all fleets

8. Update relative abundance estimates for fleets for which previous estimates were obtained
US Longline
US Rod and Reel
Japanese Longline
(by stock)
Chinese Taipei Longline
Venezuelan Longline

9. Obtain relative abundance indices for other important fleets
Artisanal gillnet
Cote d’ivoire
Ghana
Senegal
Venezuela
Sao Tome
Brazilian longline

10. Review biological information available with an emphasis on:
Habitat utilization
Growth and ageing
Reproduction and fecundity
Migration
Survival

11. Where will the meeting be held?